Download or read book An Exploratory Analysis of Thermal-hydraulic Conditions Leading to Severe Accidents for the New Production Heavy-Water Reactor written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study, sponsored by the New Production Reactor (NPR) Program through the Los Alamos NPR Safety Project Office, is part of the body of severe-accident review information being developed to support the safety review of the New Production Heavy-Water Reactor (NP-HWR). The NP-HWR safety study of severe beyond-design-basis events concerns two issues related to in-vessel, sudden-energy sources: wet-core recriticality and molten-fuel-and-coolant interaction (MFCI). The configuration that will lead to recriticality and MFCI is determined by the mode and coherency of the fuel-target disruption and water contact during the accident progression. The mode and coherency are, in turn, governed by the thermal-hydraulic conditions in the assembly channel and the fuel heatup rate after the assembly channels have dried out. The results of the analysis, presented for the transients out to the time of incipient fuel melt, describe the dominant features of the transients for the two severe events. The conclusions summarize what we have learned about the controlling mechanisms and important parameters for the conditions leading up to fuel melt, identify important safety review information that may be relevant to the final design, and suggest actions needed to conduct an adequate safety review of relevant aspects of the NP-HWR.